Social media is a humbling experience much of the time. For one it is a super fast barometer of many aspects of our digital persona made up partly of a) our online influence, b) what people ‘feel’ about you (sentiment) and c) who we are connected too but more recently with the introduction of Twitter Lists we now have an element of ‘labelling’ aka ‘tagging’. Like most I am not keen on being pigeon holed, filed and rubber stamped as ‘this kind’ of person or someone who only ‘thinks/creates/is involved’ in those things, but I was fascinated this morning in doing what Laurel Papworth did some months ago, looking at how others saw me based only on my Twitter activity.

I have currently been added to 700 lists (which I think is up in the top 10% or so?) –

the key of course is that these lists are created un-prompted by those they follow, they have selected ‘you’ quietly in the background to be a part of a personal filter, carefully structured by users who want a way to distill the vastness of a 140 character universe of noise, that is twitter – making lists for themselves of a few key personal influencers through to hundreds of sharing tweeters across several lists on quite broad topics, the lists themselves followed by thousands.

There were over 6.5 million twitter lists at the start of 2010 so I suspect at least double that for 2011 according to TNW and there are hundreds of tList directories on the web now such as ListAtlas that focuses on the most popular lists such as 22 000 following the @bieberarmy :: justinfollowplease list of 91 fans who “want to be followed” by JB himself or 38 verified world leaders compiled into this list @verified :: World Leaders followed by 15 000 or so. But back to my own little world…I am not sure if the lists below represent ‘who I am’, especially as 75% of my twitter activity is sharing links, but they certainly represent areas I work in and am interested by.

… without further ado – I quickly used TextWrangler to pull out key words and broke the 700 lists (I am on) into smaller ‘categorised’ batches. This serves as a one stop shop for me to dip in and out and decide which lists I will follow and for you to possibly find ones you may find of interest.

As is my curse I gave another overview introduction presentation last week on films made with games engines aka machinima. I then ran a workshop on the production process and techniques particularly looking at dedicated machinima tools through to games engines – now my YouTube machinimas have gone past 300 000 must be doing something right for some! But one of my key points in my intro talk was the exponential evolution of the form. It has moved away from dodgy, quick gag, non-lip synch first person shooter ‘head-shots’ through to quality tales – emotional drama, visually entrancing alongside real character led comedy. Add to this the fact that many machys are at a quality now to rival tradtional animation (see examples below).

So all speakers referred to story, quality writing but also the importance of being true to the culture of the existing game world (more at the bottom). Here are my opening slides showing key examples, classified into my categories as to what machinima is created for:

Gary Hayes will be speaking and representing LAMP and AFTRS at the The 2008 KANZ Australia Korea New Zealand Broadband Summit on 19-20 June 2008 in Seoul, Korea.

The ten or so Australian speakers at the two day summit will be led by Senator the Hon Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and will be hosted by the Korean Minister, Mr See-Joong Choi, Chairman, Korean Communications Commission (KCC).

The summit will cover topics such as Broadband Technologies, Intelligent Broadcasting, Services and Applications, R&D and Safety and Security. Gary will be talking about the growing importance of participatory content, the collision of traditional media and new collaborative tools from a story perspective and how these hybrids are an analog for the way nations could be working together – ‘the international, digital mash-up’. He will also talk about how nations can develop strategies to share learning from R&D and new industry forms.

The KANZ Broadband Summit is an annual meeting of Australian, New Zealand and Korean organisations to discuss the latest developments in broadband infrastructure, applications and content. This year it is hosted by the Korean Communications Commission, providing a focal point for discussions on mutual international collaboration in commercial and research opportunities in broadband content, services and infrastructure.

The past three Summits have attracted around 100 organisations with the objective of fostering collaboration and exploring new business opportunities. With the passing of each Summit we are seeing stronger, closer business ties established between the participating countries.

There is also an opportunity for companies for all regions to attend and what follows is some information for late applications:

You will be joining an Australian delegation made up of representatives from commercial and research organisations involved in the creation and delivery of new content and services for broadband networks. Participants will take part in the Summit by attending the formal sessions and making contact with their counterpart organisations. The broad details and arrangements for the Summit are set out below.

This is a great opportunity to participate in a top level ministerial forum, to take advantage of that forum to liaise with counterparts from Korea and New Zealand at the cutting edge of broadband services and to establish new collaborative ventures.

I urge you to register your interest in attending with our Coordinator, Ruth Conry at ruth.conry@mnetcorporation.com by Friday 30th May. Ruth can provide all the information you need regarding arrangements in Korea Ã¢Â€Â“ her mobile number is 0401 719 975.

Companies who have already confirmed their attendance from Australia to provide key speakers at the Summit include:

In addition you will have the opportunity to meet with New Zealand and Korean counterparts including senior representatives from:

Samsung Electronics

Electronics & Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Korea

Korea Telecom (KT)

TU Media Corp

Mobile Convergence Co

Asia Pacific Satellite Industries

Korea Information Security Agency

Telecom NZ

Zodal

University of Auckland

MediaLab

HectorWorld

Kordia

The Week in Seoul
Australia will be represented at a senior level at the OECD Ministerial Meeting on Ã¢Â€ÂœThe Future of the Internet EconomyÃ¢Â€Â in Seoul from 17-18 June. After the OECD meeting, ministers will open the 4th Korea Australia and New Zealand Broadband Summit taking place from 19-20 June.

Also in Seoul that week, the World IT Show provides opportunities to discover both local and international technologies being promoted in the Korean market.

In Conclusion
The Korea Australia New Zealand Broadband Summit represents an opportunity to participate in a top level ministerial forum and to take advantage of that forum to make contact with Korean organisations which, in a number of cases, are at the cutting edge of broadband technology.

With so much happening in Seoul that week, this is an unprecedented opportunity which will not occur again for some time.

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I have been tagged by Bettina (double tagged in fact inworld SL and out in web 2.0 – thanks Bett!) So I am compelled on fear of being ‘something/shamed’ to post eight random factoids about me. Well that is easy – he ponders. Wonders doing the sums how many blog posts will there be as 8*8*8 (8 factorial?) and so on spreads like a pyramid scheme, factoid virus around the web. Anyway lets get it out of the way…thinks…not that easy…ok will start at the bottom first with the next 8 victims!

1- Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2 – People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.
3 – At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4 – DonÃ¢Â€Â™t forget to leave them a comment telling them theyÃ¢Â€Â™re tagged, and to read your blog.

Now to my random things…

1 Have been a vegetarian since age of 12.
So thats like 10 years ago 😉 Well I eat fish so one of those fish eating slightly hypocritical veges…

2 Am a multi-instrumentalist.
Yay! This gives me the opportunity to show off, or it shows others what a show off I am ?!. So here is a list of my instruments I can play well (eg: impro and/or read and/or pro-record with) – Harps (3 at the moment!), saxophones, clarinet, guitars (elec through to classical), voice/singing, piano/keyboards, flute, cello, bass, various (loads of) world instruments including komuz, tar, saz, digeridoo, and all that music tech stuff. As a performer – tons of stuff including supporting many of the famous manchester bands in the 80s, through to taking leads in operas and as Music Producer tutor (such as at the BRIT School) starting folk like Imogen Heap off! Back to multi-instrumentalist this image shows how sad this can get – here is one wall of my house 😉

3 I ran away from home at 5am when I was 3 years old! Yes it was in all the papers, discovered later in the evening wandering around a busy shopping centre in Gloucester UK (where I was born – awww), more than 6 miles from the house!

4 Fav spaces, I Love desert/canyon-type environs – especially California, New Mex, Utah and Arizona. So Death Valley, Joshua Tree, Monument Valley, Canyonlands, Bryce, Taos surrounds etc etc: Still fav area on the planet is Yosemite – but often found wandering these areas when I am in them, at sunrise and sunset, wondering why I am wandering 😉

5 Collect old analog photographic stuff – but it will all have to go soon ;-( So large format cameras (yes 7*5 inches and above) through to micro spy cams etc:. Still have a great medium format enlarger and all the poison’ess chemicals – but sadly digital has now fully taken over…well not sadly, it is sooo much more dynamic and fun!

6 Long distance cyclist – used to be silly distances, and still am when I can. Regularly used to do 120-150 miles in one go! Often did cycle camping tours which turned into 700-800 mile trips, Across Uzbekistan, Bilbao to Barcelona, Prague to Budapest, New York to DC and back, San Fran to Diego via Lone Pine! Venice to Zurich, Firenze to Rome and of various long loops including Marrakech/Atlas mountains and Swiss/Italian alps – phew tired just thinking about it again!

8 Fav project I conceived and produced still has to be the BBC Musical Nomad, still live. 40 days across the ‘stans (Uzbek, Krygyz, Kazakh) – meeting musicians, shaman and great people then sending daily video, audio, images and great stories live onto the web, world service radio and doing a TV/radio capture (just 4 of us) – still have memory of setting up a satellite one dark evening on a mountainside in Kazakstan, with a generator whiring in the distance, horsemen coming in an out of the trees, to upload our daily experience and then logging onto the BBC site and hearing the national anthem in memory of Princess Diana killed a few moments earlier…